iskander wrote:Ananda wrote:You should know the answer to that!
Thank you for your time, and I mean it.
But I have lost any interest in my own thread.
Have a nice time.
Perhaps you don't know the answer to that, being specifically the third (3) Noble Truth.
The four (4) Noble Truths are an integrative whole. It's been a preoccupation in the west to not emphasize the Joy of release from dukka as well as the bliss of the jhanas.
"The Third Noble Truth says that there is a cessation of suffering; and suffering will and must cease when the cause (tanha) is eliminated. "For who is wholly free from craving there is no grief, whence fear?"
"Investigation for Insight", by Susan Elbaum Jootla. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el301.html .
Commentary:
[B. DESCRIPTION OF THE TRUTHS]
13. [494] The “truths” next to that (XIV.32) are the Four Noble Truths; that is to
say, the noble truth of suffering, the noble truth of the origin of suffering, the
noble truth of the cessation of suffering, the noble truth of the way leading to the
cessation of suffering.
14. Herein:
(1) As to class, and (2) derivation,
(3) Division by character, et cetera,
(4) As to meaning, (5) tracing out meaning,
And likewise (6) neither less nor more,
(7) As to order, (8) as to expounding
Birth and so on, (9) knowledge’s function,
(10) As to division of the content,
(11) As to a simile, and (12) tetrad,
(13) As to void, (14) singlefold and so on,
(15) Similar and dissimilar—
Thus should be known the exposition
By those who know the teaching’s order.
Visuddhimagga CH. XVI
There could be a conflict of interest for those content are less likely to do that adventure you call in America, "Shop until you drop" which sounds exhaustive.
Or in Sutta:
"Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: 'You don't understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline'; 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice'; 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards';[1] 'What I say is consistent, what you say isn't'; 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed'; 'Your statement is refuted'; 'You are talking rubbish!'; 'You are in the wrong'; 'Get out of that if you can!'
"Why should you not do this? Such talk, monks, is not related to the goal, it is not fundamental to the holy life, does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment or to Nibbana. When you have discussions, monks, you should discuss Suffering, the Arising of Suffering, its Cessation, and the Path that leads to its Cessation. Why is that? Because such talk is related to the goal... it conduces to disenchantment... to Nibbana. This is the task you must accomplish."
Notes
1.
"You are putting the cart before the horse!"
"Viggahika Sutta: Wordy Warfare" (SN 56.9), translated from the Pali by Maurice O'Connell Walshe. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .wlsh.html .
Returning home to, "Self in Theravada" a wholesome self is cultivated, a right self, a harmonious self, leading onward to emancipation.